I turn to them both. “Can you stop?”

“Why don’t you stop?”

“You’re completely wrong, you know. You’re completely full of shit.”

“That’s not what we heard.” They say that in unison, like the creepy girls in The Shining.

They say: That’s not what we heard.

The fog is so heavy by lunch, Kristina and I go outside—totally against the rules—and walk through the parking lot toward the football stadium and sit on the empty bleachers behind the press box.

“Holy shit,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“So you know everyone thinks we’re a couple, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And they think we’ve been together since we were in grade school.”

“Yeah.”

“And I heard someone say Justin was offering favors for ten bucks a shot in the back room.”

“Ugh.”

“And I heard—”

“Stop!” I say. “I can’t care about what the ass**les in this stupid town say. I just can’t care.” I eat two more Rolaids. I’ve lost count today.

She puts her hands up in a defensive way. “No problem. Just thought I could vent with my best friend about the weekend everyone found out we’re g*y. Obviously not.”

“Sorry. You can vent. I just don’t want to hear the rumors. So stupid,” I say.

She sighs. “So how was yesterday? Did they freak out on you at home? Because they sure as shit freaked out on me.”

“Claire held a mini-trial from the minute I got home until about four thirty. Even woke Ellis up for it,” I say.

“Wow. At least mine waited until yesterday,” she says. “My mother seems to think I did it to kill her. How’d Claire and Gerry take it, though? Are they okay with the news?”

I don’t say anything for a while. Then I say, “I didn’t tell them.”

“But didn’t he pick you up?”

“I mean I didn’t tell them that I’m g*y,” I say.

She looks at me sideways. “You mean they didn’t get the hint from the whole busted at a g*y bar thing?”

“I told them I was only there to have fun with my friends.”

“And they bought it?” she says way too loudly. I nod. She bursts into overexaggerated laughter. Just like at the bar on Saturday night.

I give her an annoyed look. “The Koch twins totally sucked in study hall.”

Kristina pretends to fluff her hair. “The Koch twins are jealous.”

I sit there silently for a minute.

“What’s your problem?” she asks me. “You look like you’re gonna hurl.”

“I got a text from Dee’s mom yesterday, and it said ‘Stay away from my daughter,’ and I’m really freaked out because what if I did this all for nothing? What if I can’t see Dee again, and I’m wrong about all of it?” I put my face in my hands.

This is all slowly biting me in the ass, just like Dad said it would.

I got caught in a g*y bar. Dee’s mom hates me. I am about to lose my license. I will have to go before some judge and talk about this. Everyone thinks I’m g*y.

And I think I am g*y.

I think I’m g*y, and my girlfriend’s mom wrote stay away from my daughter.

“Have you talked to her?” she asks.

I shake my head. “I’m too freaked. Her mom has her phone, anyway.”

“You should call her. Her mom probably freaked out like all of our parents did, right? I mean, we did get totally busted at a bar, right?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

She looks at the time on her phone. “Almost time to go back.”

“Did you get my message yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t call me back.”

“I was in between lectures, cross-examination and screaming fits. First my mom, then my dad, and then my mom again. Oh, poor us! Our reputations are ruined forever! Are you sure you’re g*y? How could you lie like that? Is Justin g*y, too? How long has this been going on? How could you do this to us? Blah blah blah. And then they had a huge fight because Dad wanted to set me up with someone’s weirdo son to make things all better, and Mom said nothing would make it all better and that we are all basically screwed until the end of time. And then Dad packed a bag and drove off.” She shrugs.

“Shit. That sucks,” I say.

“As far as I know, he may never come back. He didn’t show up last night, anyway.”

“Huh,” I offer. For all of Claire and Gerry’s fighting, I can’t imagine either of them leaving and not coming back. I don’t know what to say.

“Justin, too,” she says, and hands me her phone with his texts on-screen. Back after shit blows over. Don’t worry about us.

The bell rings for the end of sixth period and we start to get up and Kristina stops dead in her tracks. Her smile fades, and I can see the cockiness dissolve in waves. What’s left is the friend I met when I was ten. Nice, vulnerable and sincere. The kind of kid who helps you unpack your boxes and arrange your room even though she just met you.

She starts to tear up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her cry about anything. “I can’t go back in there,” she says.

“You’ve lived through the worst of it,” I say.

“No. There’s a lot more. I can’t go back in.” She’s shaking her head, and her lip is sticking out.

“You don’t have to, I guess,” I say. “You can just walk home. No one will stop you.”

We look at each other. Kristina nods and starts walking toward the street entrance, and I run across the parking lot and in the side door by the industrial arts wing. We don’t say good-bye.

I block out everything I hear in the hallways.

They say: Blah blah blah Kristina Houck.

They say: Blah blah blah Astrid Jones.

They say: Blah blah blah Justin Lampley.

European history is Kevin in the back row whispering “Hey, dyke! Yo, lezzer!” the whole time. “One night with me and my crew would cure that, you know!”

I walk home by myself and I think about stopping at Kristina’s house, but I see her dad’s car in the driveway and I don’t want to make things more complicated for her. I always kinda wished Mom was more like Mrs. Houck—easygoing, not so obsessed with work, not so concerned with what people say about her. But I guess I was wrong. Maybe perfect people care more than us unique people do.